This invention generally relates to small-sized electrical connectors and, more particularly, to an electrical connector for connecting a plurality of wires to a mating connector that is mounted to a circuit board.
The market for mobile telephones for consumers is constantly expanding. Mobile telephones, which are commonly referred to as “cell phones” now have the capability to send and receive e-mails, connect to the Internet and take and transmit digital photographs.
Consumers want their cell phones to be small so that they may be easily carried in a pocket or on a belt, but they also want their phones to have all these electronic features. In order to pack these features into a small form factor for a cell phone, the feature components and their associated circuitry, including connectors must be small. It is therefore desired to develop connectors of the smallest possible size which provide reliable connections. Also, many of the cell phones is use in today's market have a speaker portion which not only is hinged to the main body of the telephone, but also is capable of rotating with respect to the main body. Such a construction not only applies linear forces to the wires that interconnect the speaker portion to the telephone body portion, but also rotational or torsional forces to the wires.
Electrical cable connectors typically have an insulative housing having a mating end for mating with a mating connector and a terminating end from which a plurality of wires extend. The housing mounts a plurality of conductive terminals which have contact portions at the mating end of the housing for engaging appropriate contacts of the mating connector, and terminating portions for connection, as by soldering, to the conductors of the wires. The terminals typically also include fixing portions for fixing the terminals in the housing. Most often, the contact portion, the terminating portion and the fixing portion of a terminal are arranged in substantially a straight line. This arrangement causes problems because it increases the overall length of the connector and the electronic device in which the connector is used.
FIGS. 18–20 show a wire connector of the prior art as is shown in Japanese Publications JP 3343578 B and JP 2001-28282 A. This connector incorporates terminals which are designed to achieve miniaturization at least in the length of the connector from the mating end to the rear end thereof.
Specifically, FIGS. 18–20 show an electrical cable connector 21, which includes a housing 22. The housing mounts a plurality of terminals, 23, which are arranged in parallel along the housing. A wire 24 is terminated to each terminal, and the terminal engages a contact pin 25 of a complementary mating connector (not shown).
Each terminal 23 of prior art connector 21 includes a fixing portion 23a and a terminating portion 23b in a generally straight line. However, an L-shaped contact portion 23c is shown as offset from and generally parallel to the terminating portion. This reduces the overall length of the terminal to some extent. Fixing portion 23b has a contact point 23d (FIG. 20) and the contact portion 23c has an opposing contact point 23e. The contact points cooperatively form a mouth into which a contact pin 25 of the mating connector is inserted. Each terminal is mounted within a respective terminal-receiving passage 22a within the housing, and the housing has a hole 22b in alignment with the mouth and through which contact pin 25 of the mating connector is inserted. For completion purposes only, the connector also includes a metal shell, generally designated 26, which has a top wall 26a and a bottom wall 26b for shielding the connector. Electrical cable 24 includes a center core conductor 24a surrounded by a dielectric 24b. The core is soldered to terminating portion 23b of terminal 23. The metal shield has a rear, inwardly bent flange 26c which encloses a positioning plate 27 and a cable clamping plate 28. Finally, housing 22 includes a plurality of rear holes 22c for receiving the cables which extends into an interior opening 22d that communicates with a plurality of interior passages 22e (FIG. 19) for receiving core conductors 24a which are soldered to terminating portions 23b of the terminals before metal shell 26 is installed.
While the configuration of terminals 23 of prior art connector 21 is arranged to reduce the length of the connector between the mating end and the terminating end thereof, these terminals create further problems because their structure increases the thickness and/or width of the connector because the contact portions 23c of the terminals are offset from, or spaced to the side, or width, direction of terminating portions 23b of the terminals. The present invention is directed to a small-size connector that overcomes these disadvantages.